


Apparitions - Sam's Shifting Angel

by Jenosavel



Series: Sam's Shifting Angel [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Family, Hallucination Lucifer (Supernatural) | Hallucifer, Mental Anguish, Original Mythology, Pain, Season/Series 07, Slow Burn, Trust, original creature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 08:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenosavel/pseuds/Jenosavel
Summary: Sam and Dean met a new kind of creature not mentioned in any lore. She came with a tale too hard to believe, and even though she left, she's now appearing in Sam's head. Right alongside Lucifer. Is this all a figment? A part of Lucifer's games?-----A one-off mini-fic within the Sam's Shifting Angel series. If you have't read A Day Without Yesterday, you'll enjoy this more after reading that one first.





	Apparitions - Sam's Shifting Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the events of S7E2. Contains spoilers for S7E2

Lucifer's hands closed around Sam's throat, tightening. Sam was strong, used to handling himself in a fight, but this strength was beyond human. It was unreal, in every sense of the word. It couldn't be real. Lucifer was still back in the cage while Sam was free. This couldn't be happening. 

But thinking it, saying it, that made no difference. It felt real. It felt very real. Sam could hear his heartbeat in his ears. He could feel the pressure building in his head and his lungs burning for want of air.

With a grin Lucifer let go, point proven. He watched Sam greedily gasp for air, then cough as his raw lungs were overwhelmed. 

Sam's hand went immediately to his own throat, as if he might find some proof of the lie that this had to be. All he felt, though, was tender flesh, the fresh memory of too-strong fingers. 

"You know I'm right," Lucifer teased. "Your escape, your little soulless spree? When you think about it, you know all of that makes so much less sense than the reality that you never got out in the first place. You really think you could spring without letting me out too? C'mom Sam, you're smarter than that."

Sam didn't reply. Anything he said would only make it worse. He tried not to think too, but he couldn't help it. Lucifer was right about one thing. The story of this past year was unbelievable. Sam getting out without Lucifer following. Sam somehow running around alive without his soul. Dean making a deal with Death. Cass coming back to life only to betray them. All of it was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

But then, hadn't their lives always been ridiculous? Sometimes reality was less believable than fiction. This being another torture was too straight forward, too conveniently believable. 

And yet, was he really sitting here arguing with himself that he should believe the less believable story?

Sam clutched his forehead and rocked. What the hell was he supposed to do? 

"Sam, Sam! Can you hear me?" Dean half shouted, but Sam only rocked faster.

"Who's this asshole? And I don't mean your brother."

The shock of a new voice after days of sameness broke through and made Sam look up. Dawn was there, leaning casually against the door frame. She was wearing a different jacket, and her hair that was a shade darker than Sam remembered. She was no longer gaunt, either. Apparently, not being caught in the rain anymore agreed with her. 

"Or I just forgot the details of how I made her look last time," Lucifer offered, making a small embarrassed face. "Oops, my bad."

Dawn cast a skeptical look at Lucifer. "As if you could make me look a certain way."

"My illusion, honey," Lucifer replied. "Looks however I make it look." 

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Really Sam, where did you pick up this asshole? You've got to be more careful about who you let in here." 

"Y-you can see him?" Sam stammered, the color draining from his face. 

"Of course I can see him," Dawn replied, a little affronted. "I'm in your head too, afterall." 

"No." Sam shook his head. "No no no no no no… this can't be real." 

Dawn's eyes narrowed, darting between Sam and Lucifer, while Lucifer's grin deepened. She pushed off of the door frame and walked over to where Sam was sitting, then put a hand on his shoulder. It felt as real as Lucifer's had, and he flinched away from it. 

"This is real, in that it's really happening inside your head," she said as she knelt down to be on eye level with him. "But it's not real, in that it isn't happening to your physical body right now."

"It feels real," Sam said quietly, terrified at what he was admitting. Dawn nodded encouragement.

"Of course it does. We like to think that what we feel comes from outside, since it's usually tied to some external stimuli, but it all just comes from up here." She tapped a finger to her temple. "If someone knows how to hijack what's up here, then anything can feel real."

"No way at all to know what is or isn't real," Lucifer added helpfully. "Might as well not try."

Sam didn't say anything, but he was shaking.

"Sam, look at your brother," Dawn said sternly. "Look him in the eyes and tell me what you see." 

Sam obeyed, fearfully flicking his eyes up to meet Dean's, but when their eyes locked, suddenly he understood. Dean didn't see Lucifer. Dean didn't see Dawn. But both Dawn and Lucifer saw Dean. If one set had to be real and the other fake, then the fakes were the ones that knew too much, the ones that knew everything he did. A real person wouldn't see everything if some part of this wasn't real. 

A last shudder went through Sam as things came into clearer focus. 

"Sam, you with me?" Dean was asking. 

"Y-yeah, I'm here," Sam answered, and for the moment, he was. 

* * * * *

Trusting Dean's eyes instead of his own worked for a while, but not very long.

The night Dean finally asked him for help on a job, it felt so natural. There was just the right amount of hesitation, protectiveness, resignation, even that hint of casual cruelty that Dean was prone to. This was his brother, of course Sam would help. Of course he could keep the engine running. It was a simple enough task, even in his frayed state. 

But it wasn't simple. 

Because it wasn't Dean. 

When Dean had stepped through Bobby's door with Dawn there and Lucifer not, that should have been his first clue that something wasn't right. His second clue should have been Dawn's warning.

"He's not real," she'd said, but then, neither was she. Sam had gotten so good at ignoring the unreal and listening to Dean that it didn't even occur to him consider her words. Instead, he trusted the fake Dean right up until Lucifer yanked the veil back and revealed the game. 

How he had managed to drive himself to that warehouse all the while thinking Dean was behind the wheel, Sam would probably never know. All he knew was that he'd shot at Lucifer again and again, the visions winking out each time, until he'd almost shot at his brother. 

Dean, the real one, had still managed to come through for him though.

"Look!" Dean said, grabbing Sam's injured hand and squeezing, hard. The vision of Lucifer flickered. 

"This is different, right?" Dean demanded, squeezing harder, "Different than what's tearing at your walnut. I'm different, right?"

The pain was no different, not really, but the vision of Lucifer flickered more, blinked out, while the rest of the warehouse and Dean did not. That was different. That was very different, and Sam nodded his agreement with the sharpness of panic.

Dean let go, and Sam shook his injured hand, still throbbing. 

"Yeah, yeah I think so," Sam managed to say between ragged breaths, but just that quickly Lucifer was back.

"You sure about that, bunk buddy?" Lucifer hovered just behind Dean's shoulder. 

"Listen to your brother, Sam," Dawn said from behind Dean's other shoulder. 

"Sam? Sam!" Dean didn't quite shout, not this time, but his voice had a harsh edge. Sam didn't look at him though, instead locking eyes with Lucifer. He drove his thumb into his own bandage, gritting his teeth against the pain. 

"Doesn't mean anything." Lucifer shrugged even as he flickered again, and Sam's eyes widened with realization. 

"Hey!" Dean barked, trying to draw Sam's attention to the real. "I am your flesh and blood brother, okay? I am the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time."

Dawn still hovered behind Dean's shoulder. She hadn't flickered away with Lucifer, and she nodded now without saying a word. 

"You got away," Dean continued more gently. "We got you out, Sammy." 

"Sammy," Lucifer said sternly, reappearing as if he'd never gone. 

They talked over each other, Lucifer and Dean, both demanding to be believed. Sam drove his thumb into his bandage again, this time so hard that blood seeped through and began dripping to the floor. 

Lucifer flickered again, then vanished, while Dean and Dawn remained. 

"Believe me," Dean was saying. "You gotta believe. Make it stone number one and build on it, you understand?"

But that's what had gotten him here, blindly believing Dean. Sam's eyes darted across the floor, searching, then flicked up to Dawn.

"Believe in what's physical, if that helps," Dawn agreed, nodding towards Dean. "Pain will help you see, for a while at least. Until you grow used to it." 

"Yeah, yeah. Agree," Sam panted, nodding vigorously and finally looking Dean in the eye. This time, Lucifer didn't reappear, at least not right away. Sam's phone rang and he was able to answer it mostly normally. Dawn smiled and winked away too. 

* * * * *

Dawn reappeared later that night, when Sam was alone and about to go to sleep. 

"You're just in my head," he said, not looking at her. 

"Yeah," she agreed. "I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry I can't help more, but I'm shit at manipulating human souls and that asshole you've got rattling around in here is really good at it. I'm outmatched."

"But you didn't disappear," Sam said grimly. "Why?" 

"Because I'm _not_ shit at manipulating other parts of a human," she answered simply. "That I'm actually quite good at." 

Sam scoffed. "In English?" 

"I'm rooted to your body as much as your soul, Sam," Dawn said. "You saw that I'm a shifter. Well, I can shift anything my soul is rooted to, including you. A little bit at least." 

"That's comforting," Sam grumbled, his tone giving lie to the words. 

"It's only a little, enough to pluck the right nerves, send a signal to your brain that's indistinguishable from a real stimuli. But our connection fades more every day that we're apart. I won't be able to do this forever." Dawn actually sounded sad at that, and the muscle in Sam's jaw jumped.

"Look," he said, using the tone he usually reserved for witnesses that needed coaxing, "I know you're trying to be helpful, but right now I need to focus on what's real. Things that other people can't see? That's only making this harder." 

"Just be careful, Sam." She touched his shoulder. It was only a couple of fingertips through the flannel, but it felt so real. "That asshole won't be able to do what I can, but there are other ways. He'll find them. Pain won't hold him back forever." 

"Yeah, well," Sam sighed and looked up at her, "I'm already on borrowed time, so I'll take what I can get."

Dawn nodded, and Sam felt a twinge of sympathy. The sadness in her voice was written in every feature of her face too.

"I won't bother you again," she said, "not unless you need me. I'm not like that asshole." 

"And if I need you? How did you even know to come this time?"

Dawn shrugged. "How did Castiel hear your prayers? It's the nature of the beast." 

"So you hear prayers, then?" Sam quirked an eyebrow, but Dawn shook her head. 

"Not quite. More like I feel what my connections are feeling. If you want me, I'll feel that. If you need me, I'll feel that."

"Yeah, well, in that case, sorry I guess. This is a whole lot of crazy to be spilling out on you."

Dawn shrugged again. "I've felt worse, trust me. You don't even want to know the things my great grandmother has seen. If she was here, she'd fix you up in a moment."

Dawn sighed wistfully, and the combo caught at the edges of Sam's curiosity despite his better judgement. 

"She could manipulate souls?" he prompted. Dawn nodded, and sat on the couch next to him. 

"She fought the War of Souls, and won. She freed my family from my great great grandmother's tyranny." 

"The… War of Souls?" 

"You all got a glimpse of my soul back in that motel."

He remembered Castiel's awe, the paint-on-the-walls markings covering everything. Dawn tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, deliberately not looking at him while he watched her.

"Well," she went on, "my great grandmother fought a war entirely in that space you glimpsed, in the space of impressions and trace influences and the patterns they write on minds. She fought that war across centuries, and galaxies, and in the end she liberated a handful of galaxies, your Milky Way among them, from her mother."

Sam sat quietly, what was there to say? Even the war between heaven and hell had centered on this one blue planet. He had no frame of reference for the kind of scales she was talking.

"Anyway, it's not important." Dawn got up again. "She's not here, and my skills lie in manipulating the physical. I can't fix you, but if you ever need my help, I'll come. In the flesh, even." 

And with that she was gone.


End file.
